


sending all my love along the wire

by whisperedwords



Category: National Football League RPF
Genre: (Odell gets traded still. That's what that means.), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Denial, Falling In Love Without Even Realizing It, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Miscommunication, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24085615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whisperedwords/pseuds/whisperedwords
Summary: It’s an age-old story, the history of the very first marker ever seen, one Eli has heard a hundred times before. Once upon a time, a woman woke up in the middle of the night with searing pain in her chest. She couldn’t explain it—one moment she’d been sleeping comfortably in her bed, unbothered, and the next she’d felt like something was burning her. An eight-word phrase had appeared just above her bosom, words she’d just heard spoken by the man who’d delivered the morning’s newspaper to her front door. The rest, as it turns out, was history—an inexplicable force that foretells the future inks the first words your soulmate says to you. They only appear on your skin after they’ve spoken them. Inexplicable, and yet far-reaching and all-knowing.
Relationships: Odell Beckham Jr./Eli Manning
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	1. one.

**Author's Note:**

> this....is a WIP. i am posting it here because i need motivation to keep going.
> 
> ANYWAY. soulmate tattoo au!!!! so original, right!!!! honestly we're just. fellas. we are coping. it has been so hard. the giants are so bad. i miss odell and eli so much that i had to re-write their whole entire history to talk about just how meant to be they really were. i don't even know what this is, really, but i'm sure you'll figure it out along the way with me. (note: for anyone who's read my stuff before, this is completely separate from yingyang!verse.)
> 
> title from journey's "faithfully" which i refuse to talk about.

For as long as he can remember, Eli has always been fascinated by the idea of a soulmate tattoo. It’s an age-old story, the history of the very first marker ever seen, one that he’s heard a hundred times before. Once upon a time, a woman woke up in the middle of the night with searing pain in her chest. She couldn’t explain it—one moment she’d been sleeping comfortably in her bed, unbothered, and the next she’d felt like something was burning her. Her name has been lost to time, only a scribbled page of a diary from long ago, but her story lingers—the burning sensation had been her Mark. An eight-word phrase had appeared just above her bosom, written in sharp white lettering: _good morning, ma’am, would you like the paper?_ A phrase she’d just heard spoken by the young man who’d delivered the morning’s newspaper to her front door. The rest, as it turns out, was history—an inexplicable force that foretells the future inks the first words your soulmate says to you. They only appear on your skin after they’ve spoken them. Inexplicable, and yet far-reaching and all-knowing.

Schools usually avoided the subject, though Eli never understood why—besides the first time he’s taught about the Marking, the most he’s ever heard about Soulmarks is at home, from his family. As the youngest of three siblings, he’s seen all sorts of things—Peyton once drew a sentence on his arm in black sharpie, running home excitedly to tell his family that Susie from down the street was his soulmate. Their father had grabbed him by the arm and scrubbed the sharpie clean off his arm, chastising him about making light of a serious phase of his life and reminding him that Soulmarks go _both_ ways. Cooper had laughed at him. Eli just remembers feeling sad—sad that his brother couldn’t choose for himself, and sad that he got yelled at. But what he remembers most of being young and hearing about the Mark is from his mother, Olivia. Of all the people in his life who bore the ink, he thinks Olivia was the one who gave him the most hope about it.

Eli remembers sitting in his mother’s lap, Cooper and Peyton fast asleep on the couch beside her, telling her soft-spoken stories of what the mark means—or, more specifically, how she found hers. Olivia always showed it to him, the word _Howdy_ scrawled up her wrist in sharp, black ink. She always let him trace it with his finger, wide-eyed and fascinated by its sheer existence, and he always mouthed the word as he spelled it out, amazed that such a normal word could be so big.

“Your father,” she’d say in her quiet voice, half-trying to lull young Eli to sleep, “was at a restaurant in downtown New Orleans.” It was a bar, he’d learned later, but that never changed the deeper meaning to him. “I was waiting at the front to pay, and the cashier had run off to help somebody—you know, busy Louisiana—and that’s when I saw him. He was real sweet lookin’…real kind in the eyes, your dad, and he looked at me and said _‘Howdy,_ ’ as if he’d been waitin’ for me the whole night.” Eli always watched his mother’s face as she’d tell him how they met, always watched the way her expression softened and made her look younger. Every time, it was like the first time. “I didn’t know what to say—he was so handsome, and caught me off guard, and all I could say was ‘ _Me?_ ’ and point at myself.” Eli always thought about the word settled behind his father’s left shoulder, _ME_ etched into his skin in that same black ink. A perfect match to his mom’s. _Both ways_.

Of course, as he grew up, the Mark became less and less of interest to him. “Only girls care about the Mark,” Cooper had whispered into their quiet room one night after coming home from college. “Guys don’t give a shit about it until they get it, and when they do, it’s more a warning that their days of being cool and care-free are almost up.”

“Why?” Eli had asked, still fourteen and curious about whether girls had cooties or not. Peyton snickered from his top bunk, but Cooper shook his head, ignoring their middle brother and addressing his youngest’s question.

“Cause, E,” he’d said knowingly, “when you get your Mark, you hafta marry your soulmate.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, you do. Not like, right away, but when you get your mark, ‘s who you’re gonna end up with forever. No takebacks.”

Eli was quiet, but Peyton butted in. “That’s bullshit, Coop. Susie has a mark, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t make out with me behind the auditorium after school sometimes.”

“Ew,” Eli groaned.

“Peytie, you’re a jackass, and she’s probably got loose legs anyway.”

“Shut up, Cooper!” Peyton had snapped. But their conversation ended there, a flurry of thoughts about soulmates rattling through Eli’s head, all questions with no answers. _Is he supposed to care_? _Is he supposed to be looking_? And if he found her— _what is he supposed to say_? He loved his brothers more than anything, as role models and best friends and family, but he’d never trusted them about this. Not all the way. So he distanced himself from the conversation and let what really mattered take over— _football_.

It wasn’t even that hard, really—high school football at Isidore Newman turned into college ball at Ole Miss, and as quarterback Eli felt in control of things in a way that felt comfortable. All serious thoughts of the Soulmark and its so-called political subject matter dissipated the longer he was under center, plays forming even behind his eyelids as he learned what victory felt like, what the weight of command is, what a group of men moving together in unison as one being could be. And he loved it. He _loved_ it. Nothing in the world would make him happier than that feeling of being in the pocket, scouting a path to victory.

And then he’d gotten drafted by the New York Giants in 2004, and, well, then that’s history.


	2. two.

Odell, conversely, has always been afraid of the soulmark. There hasn’t been a moment in his life where he was surrounded by Marked family and friends who weren’t at their happiest and most at ease, so his rationale has always been a little on the shaky side, but knowing that never stopped him from fearing the mark. He knows the history behind it, was told the tale of the woman and the paper boy a hundred times by his mama and grandmama til they were practically blue in the face, but all that knowing didn’t do a damn thing.

The thing that scared him for most of his childhood was the unpredictability of it. He loves his parents, loves them with his _whole_ heart, but when he found out at age 10 that they weren’t soulmates, it broke his heart. He didn’t understand it—they were so happy when they were together, always kissed when they greeted each other when passing Odell along for custody— _how could they not be soulmates_? It seemed kind of unfair. So he asked one night, long after he’d told his mama he’d gone to bed. In the dull hours of the evening, just shy of midnight, O remembers sitting down next to his mother, holding onto a fistful of blanket as he’d spoken.

“Mama, why aren’t you and Dad soulmates?”

Odell remembers his mom choking on the glass of water she’d been sipping on because it had scared him half to death, the loud cough interrupting the quiet room’s warmth.

“What?” Heather was caught off guard, Odell knew, so he’d silently waited beside her, still fiddling with the blanket clenched in his fist. “Oh, baby, your daddy and I _are_ soulmates—”

“No, you’re not,” Odell interrupted, finally looking at her from where he’d been distracted. “Dad told me once. Said you and him wasn’t supposed to be together.” His mother shook her head, blonde hair catching the light of the TV in a way that stilled him. For a while, that TV filled the silence between them. O swore that she’d fallen asleep, but a moment before he stood to go back to his room, his mother’s quiet voice drew him back.

“Odell, baby—listen. I love your daddy very much. I do. But sometimes…” she’d hesitated there, and that was the key—that was what sucked Odell into her words all the way. She reached out to ruffle his hair a little. “Sometimes, baby, two people can love each other and not be soulmates. I know they don’t teach you that in school, and you’d never hear about it from anybody else, but…not every type of love makes you soulmates.”

“Oh.”

His mom had laughed, though he didn’t think it was really funny. “Yeah, baby. When I first met your daddy I _swore_ he‘d start burning me up like the good Lord intended.” She sounded eager, like she’d still been waiting for proof. “But we’d been speakin’ for weeks and weeks, and his words just weren’t…”

She never finished that sentence, and Odell had realized that he shouldn’t ask about what her tattoo _did_ say. He dropped the subject and went back to bed, his mother’s words blurring together in his head like a fog. The Mark had never been that important to him, anyway...had it?

Besides. Soulmates were for _girls_ , and he wasn’t girly. (That’s what all his kickball friends told him, anyway, and he trusted them enough to believe that they were telling the truth.) Sports were becoming his biggest love, anyway—after dabbling in soccer and baseball, basketball and hockey, he had finally found the one sport for him. Football. Fast like the wind and reliable, Odell realized he’d found his position…no, his _part_.

* * *

Really, our story begins on a turf-grass blend field in Louisiana. Odell has been sitting in English for what feels like _forever_ and he can’t help it—his eyes are drawn to the clock, begging it to tick faster and get him away from their awful discussion of Aldous Huxley’s _Brave New World_. He’s not about the classic literature, or any literature, really. At least, not today. Because today, in about an hour, Eli Manning, Super Bowl MVP and local-boy-slash-alumni is going to be visiting Isidore Newman High School. _His_ school. Or, Odell corrects himself mentally, _their_ school. He’d walked through these same halls, probably felt the same way about reading stupid books like _The Scarlet Letter_ and _To Kill A Mockingbird_ —all heavy-handed stuff, O’s always thought, all boring books that were exactly what they looked like on the surface. But Eli Manning wasn’t that, all surface without depth. Odell remembers _watching_ him that night, the night that he defeated the Patriots and snatched them from the jaws of history. He remembers yelling and shouting, he remembers covering his eyes when Eli had thrown that pass to David Tyree, a player he hadn’t even _heard_ of ‘til that one moment… That had been the game that made Odell learn Eli Manning’s name, and it didn’t take long for him to be able to see through the game to figure out what kind of person Eli Manning really was. _Is_.

Somehow, through some kind of miracle probably sent by his mama, he manages to focus back on the book and not on the incoming celebrity he’s about to meet. He _listens_ as his teacher drones on about the symbolism of the candle. (It makes the clock go faster.) And finally, to his utter relief, the bell _finally_ rings to end class. Odell all but scrambles from his desk and runs to his locker, shoving his books away and grabbing his gym clothes in a haste to get to the locker room. He’s gotta suit up, he’s _gotta_ , he’s about to meet _Eli Manning_ —of course, in his flight to the gym, he stumbles a little on his shoelaces and trips. Keyla from math class snorts at him from the other side of the hallway, but he thinks he’ll outlive the embarrassment.

When he finally makes it out onto the field, teammates jogging beside him towards the white lines, he forgets how to breathe for a moment. Super Bowl MVP and _former Isidore Newman student_ Eli Manning is standing out on the football field, casually tossing a league-sized ball hand-to-hand and talking to Coach. Odell thinks he looks like he could be an assistant coach on the sidelines—but the thought is silly, because he knows the quarterback he’s staring at is way too talented to just settle for high school coaching.

As if on cue, Eli turns towards where Odell is half-jogging up. A slow smile spreads across his face, and _shit_ is O starstruck. This is his first real celebrity encounter, after all; is he _expected_ to have his shit together? He can’t help it, he’s trembling a little in the hands as he finally slows to a stop in front of Eli and Coach. He shuts his eyes for a second, reminding himself he has to breathe instead of go off on a rambling tangent.

But then he opens them and Eli is still smiling at him, now reaching a hand out to clap him casually on the shoulder. All the normal thoughts in Odell’s brain have gone to mush.

“Wow… _you’re him_.” He’s surprised his voice doesn’t crack when he says it because he feels like a kid again, ten years old and watching wide-eyed as quarterbacks like Eli were following _his_ dream of being a pro player. Eli’s smile gets even bigger at Odell’s words, and he winks before taking a big step back.

He pauses for a moment, as if considering his words. “Go long,” he finally says, winking as he winds up to throw. Odell doesn’t think he’s run faster for a ball in his life.

Peyton shows up a few minutes later, to the whole team’s surprise. Odell thinks he’s going to vibrate out of his skin when he sees the older Manning brother stroll up onto the field like he’d been meant to be there. From there, it’s a show-off competition for them—which brother can throw the best. O and his friends spend half their time laughing at their stupid brotherly antics, and the other half of their time sweating between plays. Eli and Peyton throw _hard_. They call routes just like Odell hears on TV all the time. (He remembers mimicking them while sitting too-close to the TV ‘til Dad pulled him away, but this feels different. This feels _completely_ different.)

At the end of their hour or so all together, though, Odell thinks Eli is his favorite brother. _Not that Peyton isn’t cool or anything_ , he justifies to himself, _Eli just seems…nicer_. The two Mannings had been fighting to get to throw O the ball, making jokes about how they were gonna draft him in fantasy football next year, but Eli was the only one to walk back up to him and shake his hand after the visit was done.

“You’re doin’ good work, _Oh-_ dell,” Eli had said, giving him a firm handshake and clapping him on the shoulder again. “Hope I get to see you in the NFL someday.”

“Yeah,” Odell faintly remembers saying. “See you then.”

Yeah, Eli definitely is his favorite.

* * *

Eli _had_ heard things about Odell Beckham Jr. when he’d decided to visit his old high school. That the kid was fast— _real_ fast, faster than you could believe a sixteen year old boy could even be—and that he had good hands. He was apparently smart, too, in his playbook knowledge and in his academics. (Eli had laughed about that last point, because _no_ kid in high school who was playing varsity football ever would want to brag about being book smart.) All this had shown up, too, when they’d been out on the field: it was easy for Eli to pick up a kind of chemistry with him, something quick that’d happened within the first three passes, and it made the quarterback smile. _This kid has_ dreams _,_ he’d thought. _He’s got real potential_. Everything that he’d been told about Odell had been right and _then_ some.

And it was all fun and lighthearted for Eli, a nice little reunion with his high school and a good way to generate a nice story for the Giants’ PR team.

That is, until he started burning the next morning.

If he’s being honest, Eli knows exactly who his marker ties him to even before he can open his eyes and half-tear his own shirt off. Just above his heart there’s a searing pain, words etching into his skin for the first time—he’d be more embarrassed about _just_ being Marked if he weren’t so terrified about who it was that was Marking him.

_Odell_. Oh, _fuck_. Eli shouts, momentarily forgetting he’s still staying in a hotel room in Louisiana where other people could more than likely hear him, and flings his rumpled shirt across the room. The Mark was never supposed to hurt—not like this.

“He’s…he’s sixteen.” The words slip from his lips later as he’s staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, showered and settled for an afternoon in. (There’d been a meeting with his hometown mayor, but Eli knows him well. They’d settled on another date in the future.) “ _Fuck_ he is _sixteen years old_.” Hands unconsciously running through his hair, Eli can’t do anything but stare into the glass at the sharp, black ink that had appeared where only mere _hours_ ago there hadn’t been a thing. For a moment, he’s thrown back into childhood, tracing the letters on his breast as if he’d been touching the ones on his mother’s forearm. _Wow you’re him_. A calling card, a burn mark on his bare chest that just screams horror to him.

He thinks back, for a moment, to talking with Cooper in their dark bedroom all those years ago. With a quiet huff of not-amused laughter, Eli is thankful that his brother had been wrong. He can’t imagine having to confront this kid—this _kid_ —and say “Hey, I’m Eli Manning, and also your soulmate even though you’re a kid and a boy and I’ve never seen you before a day in my life” or _anything_ to that extent.

The skin doesn’t even feel different now that it’s been Marked but Eli can’t stop touching it. It’s fascinating, to have become complete in the eyes of society and yet feel so utterly empty. 


	3. three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (this is short, i am bad at cutting chapter lines, i'll try to be better about this in the future lol)

The thing of it is, Odell doesn’t wake up that morning when the burning starts. He’d spent the night running around with his friends and ducking curfew, playing two-hand-touch in the school parking lot all night long and exchanging stories about what they thought professional football players do on their days off.

“They train, duh,” Odell had said, rolling his eyes, and Kev had nodded, lightly punching him in the shoulder in agreement.

“But O,” Markus had replied, shaking his head. “What about Eli today?”

What _about_ Eli today? It’d made him pause for a moment, knowing that someone as high-caliber as a Manning brother could—and _would_ —take time off to visit a couple of scrappy high schoolers who were on a half-good varsity football team. It was crazy to think about, but they didn’t spend much time on it, because there’d been a shout from the school’s direction and the boys immediately scrambled. Odell had come home so tired that he’d fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

It’s such deep sleep that he doesn’t even register when the Marked words start to surface. In fact, it’s _such_ deep sleep that he doesn’t even realize they’re there when he first wakes up—instead, he rubs at his right arm a little, blinks blearily at the little alarm clock on his desk, and rolls out of bed to get dressed for the day. It’s not until he’s sitting in second period chemistry and staring at the pencil in his hand that he notices.

And then, of course, he drops his pencil and yelps. _A Mark?!_

“Odell?” Mr. Morris asks, confusion and concern written plainly on his face. “Is something the matter?”

He can’t just _tell_ his teacher that he’s just been Marked. He can’t—that’s super private. Also, he’s embarrassed because he hadn’t even felt it. “Ye—I mean, no, Mr. M,” O replies a beat later, trying to mask the tremor in his voice. “Just got a splinter from my pencil.” He leans over his desk to pick it up off the floor, completing his charade.

“Do you need a band-aid?”

“Nah.”

“Then may I continue with my lesson?” The concerned look has shifted back into the stern teacher expression Odell has come to know and complain about. For a moment, he considers being a dick about it: but the feeling passes, and he nods and pointedly rests his hands on his desk as if to say _no more distractions_.

Except, well, there’s a big one tattooed to his damn _arm_ and visible in broad daylight. _A Mark_. He’s been so consumed with the fact that it’s there on him that he hasn’t even thought to read it, let alone learn who it’s from. So he takes a quiet-but-deep breath to keep himself steady, and then turns his attention away from the lesson and towards his right arm, where the text is settled over the open space of his skin.

_Go long_ is written in clear, dark lettering. In a way, he’s grateful that the words aren’t romantic or poetic or anything that would really chain him to these thoughts. Two simple words— _go long_ , words that are almost a comfort to him. _Maybe football is my soulmate_ , he thinks jokingly. But the thought has him lingering on his newfound Mark, amazed and also a little anxious. Odell can’t help himself—he instinctively reaches over to trace the lettering, lingering over the curve of the G that starts and ends his entire life. He thinks back to his mother, who’s soulmates with a man he’ll never have as a father, and of all his grown-up friends who look at their marks with an expression that saddens him. _I’m only sixteen_ , O thinks, a low thrum of panic settling somewhere deep in his gut. _How can I already have a soulmate?_ His brain runs wild at the thought, and he’s not even concerning himself with _who_ it is at this point.

Someone nudges him in the back, tearing him from his thoughts. He has to forcibly cling to his chair so as not to make another interruption in class. When he turns around, one of his classmates is eyeing his arm with a raised eyebrow.

“Is that a Mark?” He whispers. Odell plays dumb.

“Is _what_ a Mark?” He whispers back, furrowing his brows as if he’s pretending to look for something _that_ important and not finding it. His classmate—David, he thinks—rolls his eyes.

“Don’t fuck around, Beckham,” he whispers back, “that thing on your right arm. C’mon. Is it?”

Odell pauses for a moment, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse. He’s not old enough to get a tattoo so he can’t technically lie about that—

“Oh, this? Nah, it’s not a Mark. ‘s sharpie. Just thinking about tattoo ideas for when I’m 18.”

David snorts under his breath, then coughs just in case Mr. Morris is listening. “You’re gonna get a tattoo that says ‘go long’ in plain black letters? Dude.”

“Listen,” O murmurs, suddenly at ease in this lie. “I’m just testing out handwriting styles. Wanna see what looks best on me.” He pauses. “I’m gonna get a whole lot, man. Gotta start somewhere.”

David shakes his head a little, but Odell can tell that he’s not suspicious anymore. “Good luck gettin’ rich enough to,” he mumbles, and then sits back down in his seat.

“David,” Mr. Morris calls out. “Can you answer my question, please?” Odell snickers under his breath. _Got’im_.

The lie seems to work for the rest of the day even in Odell’s own brain. By the time lunch rolls around, he’s convinced it really _was_ sharpie marker, and that he’d been so tired last night that he’d forgotten that he had even written it. The comfort has re-immersed him, and he goes through the rest of his day without thinking about it. Class still drags on, and his friends still make silly faces at him in the hallway to clown him, but it feels like a normal day.

He’s reminded of his condition again in the shower that night.


	4. four.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE lmk if the perspective-changing between chapters is too much!!!!! yall know i dont beta or even edit my work so i need bullying to make my words nice.

Admittedly, however, Eli’s concern and dread regarding his soulmate status fades away pretty soon after it appears. By the time he’s back on the field that season, he’s suddenly thrust into the midst of a championship season—literally. As if the stars could not be more clear about their desire for him to have his own legendary path cut out for him, the New York Football Giants win the Super Bowl—four years after their first under Eli—against the same foe. The Patriots go down, again, and Eli hoists the trophy, again, and it feels…right. Like there is nowhere he could possibly be, nothing he could possibly care about, more than being in the center of the world with confetti fluttering down all around him and his teammates. The look Vic gives him under the lights is all he really needs to solidify this: football is the truest and purest source of joy in the world, and nothing else can compare. Nothing even comes close.

Of course, nothing lasts forever—and why would it, really? This is New York. There’s never been any room to linger in past achievements. The season after is going well, and he’s feeling a second-coming of the miraculous play from last season, and then…well, and then Plax shoots himself in the foot at a nightclub he’d invited Eli to, and their off-to-a-good-start 2012 season goes haywire. Eli is glad he’d respectfully declined, seeing as he’s left most of his partying days behind back in Mississippi, but it doesn’t make those late-December games hurt any less when he thinks about what could’ve been. And then 2013…well, it’s a season he’d like to forget. Of all the things to concern himself with, little things about his personal life like a Soulmark are less worrisome than the league-leading year of interceptions he puts up.

It’s hard being a champion in New York, he learns. It’s hard being a _man_ in New York. To have all the eyes in the world trained on you and still not be seen…Eli finds himself touching the mark on his chest every so often to center himself. Not for the actual soulmate piece— _that_ he hasn’t given thought to since they’d started in 2010, and frankly he’s not even sure how to start thinking about it now—but more of the existence of the mark itself. The knowledge that the universe has some kind of plan for him, even if it’s dragging him through the mud right now. _Is it naïve for him to hope that it’ll change?_ He’s read stories before, of people who wake up to find that their mark reads differently than it did the day before; no one has ever really dug into the science of ‘em, but Eli thinks of them more as a reminder of his place in all of this. That even his _Mark_ isn’t set in stone, so how can his actual career be any different?

He pushes through 2013 and makes it. Survives. The Post has claimed he’s got the talent of a plastic city-wide trash bin, but he survives long enough to get the New York Football Giants pick number 12 in the 2014 NFL Draft. As he does every year, Eli promises that he’s going to turn over a new leaf this year. That things are going to be different. _Nothing is set in stone_. Not the mark, not the Giants, not the future.

And yet, somehow, that doesn’t quite work out for him. The next time he crosses paths with the universe’s antics, Eli thinks he’s going to faint. He’d settled in for the night after a particularly relaxing and quiet offseason of recovery and mild training, turned on the TV in time to see the Giants make the 12th pick in the draft, and then…

The truth is, he’d half-forgotten about young Odell, and the fact that it was _him_ who’d given Eli the soulmark what feels like a lifetime ago. Seeing him walk up on-stage at the NFL Draft— _for his team_ —has him a little bit shaken to say the least. The Mark above his heart aches at the sight, something that Eli hadn’t expected in the slightest when he tuned in from home to watch his team pick their newest and youngest star. The cameras flash, the crowd shouts and cheers, but Eli himself can barely hear a thing as soon as the cameras zoom in to his face. He looks down to see he’s unconsciously grabbed a fistful of blankets at the sight, and something unidentifiable, buried deep in his gut, shifts.

_He’s handsome_ , Eli realizes. He’d never noticed—never had the _chance_ to notice, not with the way they’d met or how there’s been twelve years between them this whole time. (Twelve is the right number, yes—Eli had frantically looked it up as soon as he’d gotten back to New Jersey from _that_ trip, bile rising in his throat at the knowledge.) But here, now, Eli can’t take his eyes off of him. His new wideout. The curve of his smile is hard to look away from, so easy and contagious that the quarterback finds himself smiling a little with the screen. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it—the hand clenching his blanket has relaxed, now, settled into a loose curve over his knee as he watches Odell Beckham Jr. cross the New York stage. Only a handful of miles away, across a bridge and through a couple of intertwined city blocks, Eli Manning’s soulmate is taking his place alongside him by some unbelievable incident of chance. _Wow, you’re him_ echoes in his head like young Odell is right beside him, saying it for the first time. He’d been so young.

_He’s still young_ , Eli thinks, watching the young receiver wipe his eyes on-stage before posing with Roger Goodell in front of the world. It strikes him that it’s been five years since they’d first met; five years since Eli had gotten to throw the ball with him for the first time, five years since he woke up the next morning with a pretty black-inked scar just above his heart that had changed everything for him.

Five years. He wonders if Odell knows.

That night, Eli falls asleep and dreams of searching Odell, looking for his words, tracing them slowly with the pad of his thumb.

The feeling hadn’t existed in him before, this burning curiosity under his skin that’s driving his dream self to peel away every layer his soulmate had been wearing tonight. But here and now, in this perfect dream vacuum, it’s safe to let it flourish—it’s safe to let it bubble to the surface. There’s nothing around, no one but himself and Odell to be concerned with, so he lets himself go. For the first time in his life, Eli indulges.

Eli’s dreamscape has blocked out most of the sensory information to really ground him to the moment, so he doesn’t hear himself or Odell, doesn’t feel warm skin or soft hair or cool lips—but he sees. He sees, he sees, he sees. Suddenly his soulmate is bare in front of him, heated energy dissipated, a beautiful body without desire shrouding it, and Eli _sees_.

Whatever space that had been between them is gone, now. (A symbol, perhaps, of their new professional union.) Practically chest-to-chest, with Eli realizing belatedly that he’s just as unclothed as his partner, they stare at each other with knowing eyes. His eyes traverse over the curve of Odell’s right shoulder, drift down his arm and over his unblemished skin before his eyes register what he’d been looking for this whole time.

The Mark is black, like his own, written in familiar-yet-unidentifiable handwriting just above the crook of his right elbow. All Eli wants to do is touch it. He looks up instead, from the Mark to the face of his lover— _lover?_ —whose face has stretched into a big, familiar smile. He looks so young. Without being prompted, he opens his mouth and begins to speak.

Eli desperately wishes he could hear what Odell is saying as his lips move, slow and smooth in a way he craves that he can’t even explain. The expression on Odell’s face is soft and open, and it’s like reading an old book. A book that Eli’s never picked up, never held, never noticed until this very moment, and yet he knows he’s read it cover to cover. He can’t say a word, either—they’re bound together in this silence, in this absence of all things but sight.

But still he reaches out and presses his palm flat to the words on Odell’s arm, allows his fingers to curl around Odell’s bicep. Another indulgence, satisfied; the Odell of his dreams looks down at their delicate skin-to-skin union, then looks up, and exhales. (Eli can feel it.) Odell stops whatever he’d been saying, only for Eli to watch as his face softens into the prettiest smile he’s ever seen. That something in his gut from before stirs again and he forgets how to breathe. It’s been five years since they’ve exchanged even a glance, but in this moment, Eli feels the full force of his attention all at once. What it must feel like to burn under it face-to-face, he can’t imagine.

Odell reaches out with his free arm, that quiet smile still sitting pretty on his face, and splays his hand over the words emblazoned on Eli’s chest.

Eli’s dreamscape has been a vacuum—at least right up until this moment. Odell’s palm settles over his heart and his whole body burns.

He wakes with a start, clapping a hand to his chest where his Soulmark is as if it would’ve gone away completely in the night. ( _A Mark is permanent_ , his mother’s voice echoes softly in his head, _tsk_ ing the panic away.) His dream had felt real—more real than he’d even imagined a dream could feel. His skin is warm and almost _feverish_ , clearly still flushed from whatever Odell had sparked in him from that phantom touch, and his stomach is in knots. Eli turns to look at the alarm clock sitting beside his bed—5:12AM, the sharp red numbers reveal in the lingering hours before dawn.

Tired and yet completely awake, Eli rolls over in bed, chest no longer rising and falling in a panic. Clumsily, he reaches out to his opposite nightstand for his phone. He slaps a few small items out of the way with a clatter before finding it conveniently lit-up and in his face. In the darkness, it’s almost blinding. But, he realizes, it’s Coach—or, rather, Tom’s right-hand-man texting him.

_Hey. Here’s Odell’s number._ A contact file is attached, so Eli presses it, assuming the information will just appear on his phone so he can save it and store it away for a friendly welcome text in the actual hours of the morning.

The universe, however, has other plans. Eli’s thumb presses the screen and the phone app starts up, dialing the attached number and immediately ringing even though it is _literally_ a quarter past five in the morning right now.

“ _Shit_ ,” Eli mumbles, pressing around on the screen blearily to find the end call button. It’s supposed to be bright red, why isn’t it _there_ —

“Hello?” A sleepy-sounding voice echoes through his room on the accidentally-pressed speakerphone. “Who’s this.”

_Shit shit shit_. “Hey, uh, it’s Eli.” Eli pauses. “Eli Manning. You know, uh, quarterback for the New York Gi—”

“Eli?” Odell’s voice is groggy but clear as day to his ears. _His soulmate_. “Eli, wha—”

“Sorry, Oh-dell,” Eli interrupts, turning speakerphone off. He presses the phone to his ear but lies back in bed, his back hitting his sheets in a way that feels different, somehow. Knowing Odell was asleep before this very second means that he’s in a bed, too, somewhere. Probably not alone, definitely with a tattoo that matches his own. A disconcerting flood of feelings washes over him, but Eli pushes them off. Not for right now. “I just, uh—just got your number and wanted to text you.”

“This ain’t texting,” Odell answers, voice crackling a little in his ear. There’s no bite to it, though, which is comforting in a way Eli wasn’t expecting. Then: “Hit the wrong button on yo’ phone?” The Louisiana drawl is there, drawn-out from exhaustion. That’s the first thing Eli notices, anyway—the second thing is that, wow. Odell had been able to guess what’d happened on one try. ( _It’s not that remarkable_ , he thinks. _Anyone would’ve guessed that. Even if they weren’t your soulmate_.)

Eli laughs sheepishly, trying to keep it quiet. “Yeah, guess this stupid phone of mine didn’t get the memo.” He pauses to hear if Odell laughs, or even exhales softly in amusement. “Just wanted to say congratulations, man. And, uh, welcome to the team.”

There’s a pause. Eli thinks he’s fallen back asleep, but then his new receiver’s voice floods his ears, warming that spot just above his heart again. “Thanks, Eli. For real. Can’t wait to play with you—”

“Nah, _Oh_ -dell. Save that talk for later. Go back to sleep.” It’s instinct to watch out for him, all of a sudden, even though he’s the only reason Odell is awake right now. Telling him to go back to sleep felt natural: like this moment between them had just activated something protective hidden within him. When that was something that even _existed_ within him, Eli doesn’t know. But frankly, he’s not sure if it matters anymore, anyway.

A soft huff of laughter breezes through the phone. _The amusement he’d been looking for_. “You’re the boss, boss,” Odell replies, sleep-filled voice getting softer with each word. “G’nite, E.”

“G’nite, man. Sweet dreams.” The phone clicks quietly in his ear, but there are so many things going on in Eli’s head right now that he can’t really be bothered to care. He lets the phone fall out of his hand and bounce harmlessly back onto his mattress. _Odell_. The man from his dream, the boy who’d put this tattoo on his chest, the unbelievably talented wide receiver who’d just become part of his football team.

Well. _Their_ football team. (Just another thing that he shares with Odell.)

“Jesus Christ,” he murmurs up to his ceiling. For five years, Eli had been able to get away with not thinking about the Mark he’d been given, gone from space to space without really needing to explain a thing. He’d met up with ( _see: fucked_ ) a few girls he'd known back in college who didn’t care that he was Marked—they’d tell him the same thing Odell said that Tuesday morning out in the humid New Orleans late-summer air. _Wow, you’re him_ , drunk and murmured in pretty voices, and he’d forgotten it hadn’t been them who said it to him first. It was so easy. Even in New York, things had been so easy.

He’s 33 now, and the matter had been almost completely resolved. It hadn’t been hard to convince himself that he’d just marry someone he thought he cared about. Settle down with someone who’s not his soulmate but was someone who he could easily pretend with. Or—love isn’t always about Marks, that’s what they’ve been saying to sell gossip magazines, now. _Not about the Marks, about the heart_. Eli could love someone who his words hadn’t been inked to. He’d been fine without being with his soulmate. He could’ve gotten used to it.

Instead, here he is, lying wide-awake before 6am and staring at his stark white ceiling. _How did this happen_? Eli Manning is about to be working side-by-side with his literal Marked partner. He’s more than a quarter of the way through with life, he’s been in the league for almost a full decade, he’s—he’s the complete opposite of Odell Beckham Jr., almost to a T. How is his world getting rocked like this _now_?


	5. five.

Odell’s first day as a New York Giant is…pretty uneventful, if he’s being honest. Rookies report to minicamp before anyone else, so of course he doesn’t get to meet Eli ( _again_ ) and the rest of the veterans. He knows Reuben is still on the team and is quietly excited to play with someone he’d befriended back in college, but even _he_ isn’t here on-site at Quest Diagnostics— _not even actual Metlife_. They get a pretty generic tour, and a promise for a more specific one (once more of the team is on-site), and then are whisked away into the team meeting room/auditorium to listen to Coach Coughlin talk. O remembers watching him beet-red on the sidelines during the 2011 Super Bowl and laughing with his friends at how perpetually angry he seemed to be—but here and now, in this comfortable air-conditioned room with almost twenty other guys, Odell sees that Coach is much more level-headed than the cameras make him out to be. He’s smart, he has plans, he says he knows what he wants out of each man in the room…Odell can’t take his eyes away. He’s never been around anyone who can command a room like that.

And then, once _that_ finishes, they’re brought to the locker room. It’s mostly just so the rookies have a general sense of direction so they don’t get lost going from meetings…and yet, the moment Odell steps through the doorway and onto the bright blue carpeting, he can feel it. Can feel the energy of the team, the energy of the _legacy_ in this room right now. O looks up and sees his name plate above one of the lockers and can’t stop looking. _Odell Beckham Jr. 13._ He looks over and sees that he’s only a handful of lockers away from _Eli_. Eli Manning, two-time Super Bowl MVP. Two-time champion over Tom Brady and his dynasty team.

The summer passes quickly for him after reporting to minicamp that day. Odell finds himself vibrating at a higher frequency than he ever has before, routes and plays running through his head in his _sleep_. It’s instinct, for him—he’s made it to the Pros now, he’s got the hopes and dreams of his brothers on his shoulders, he _has_ to perform to their standards and beyond. Has to achieve greatness.

He gets swept up in the training so deeply that, one humid and muggy August afternoon, it takes a full minute for him to realize something is wrong with his leg. Something is _wrong_ wrong. He stops the ladder route he’s in the middle of on the field and steps off to the side gingerly, careful to not put weight on his right side in order to prevent anything from getting worse. The coaching staff, of course, is on him immediately, listening to him as he describes the sudden rip of pain that’d shot up his thigh out of nowhere mid-route. It’s funny—Odell hadn’t even noticed it before, but all of a sudden Eli was there beside the trainers, looking passively curious but showing flashes of what looked like _concern_ to Odell.

“You okay?” He asks later, when they’re all inside for lunch. Eli had set down his tray at the table beside him during lunch, giving him the same silly-looking smile in greeting before letting it settle into something less carefree. Now, Odell notices, Eli’s gaze is visibly concerned. It’s sweet, in a disconcerting way—Eli is a championship quarterback. Why would he care about his rookie wideout’s mild-seeming injury before they’ve even had time to develop their football chemistry?

There are plenty of odd things about Eli Manning that Odell has noticed. This little detail, now, is one of them.

“Yeah,” Odell answers, shrugging off the look Eli shoots at the crutches propped up by Odell’s right side. “They said I prob’ly bruised a hammy, that’s all. Nothing to worry about, man.”

An unidentifiable look breezes across Eli’s face for a moment. Then: “Good, good. Gonna need all the help we can get out here at receiver, man.” He cracks a smile. O returns it on instinct.

Their conversation lulls into something casual and less serious only moments later, more pleasantries than anything else, but Odell tracks Eli’s gaze for a moment only to find his quarterback looking…at his Mark?

He doesn’t say anything about it. No matter how many times he gets that same curious look, it never fails to put him a little bit on-edge. A few days before the draft, he’d gone out and gotten his first tattoo—the New Orleans area code in bold, black letters printed up the side of his bicep as a type of anchor to where he came from. He’d told the artist that he wanted it on his right arm—“ _same as my other one_ ” said as instruction. It’d draw less attention to the way his Mark had been so plainly burnt into the skin just above his elbow. Here and now, getting that tattoo (and the subsequent ones he’d gotten afterwards) seems to be the better and more proactive choice.

It isn’t like Odell is _ashamed_ of his Mark, though. It had never been about that, though he never really told people that he’d gotten the Mark before he had even learned how to drive. The point of privacy for him is that he doesn’t _know_ who his soulmate is. The two simple words on his arm have been uttered hundreds of times before to him, and he’d never thought twice about it, before _and_ after he’d gotten it. And besides—everyone he talked to in his youth had always had a romantic, deeply personal story attached to their Marks. It’s become a point of self-consciousness for him, really: his lack of knowledge about his soulmate has always haunted him a little bit.

So when Eli’s eyes drift to the two little words carefully set in his skin, Odell huffs a quiet laugh and turns towards him, ready to nip whatever curiosity his quarterback had before it got any bigger.

“Tryna figure out my mark, huh?”

* * *

Eli freezes, not even realizing he’d been staring until Odell had not-so-subtly called him out. _I’ve already figured it out_ , he wants to say, but there’s no way that’s a good thing to talk about at lunch. Especially not with his rookie—his _soulmate_?

“Hah,” he says instead, half-laughing and rubbing at the back of his neck sheepishly. “Bad habit, I guess.” For a moment, he realizes he doesn’t know how he’s going to ease his way out of this…this blunder of his. _Why am I so obvious_? He watches Odell’s face in that split second, how it’s not sharp and angry but leaning more towards curious. His receiver’s eyebrow raises, along with the corner of his mouth, as if to ask ‘ _what kind of bad habits do you_ mean’ without needing to say it. Does being soulmates mean Eli can read Odell’s thoughts? It’s a silly thought, one Eli is embarrassed to even acknowledge. _Mindreading_. He shakes his head a little to clear his head from the stupid idea. _What is this, X-Men_? Besides, it’s not like Odell isn’t a young, impressionable, easy-to-read rookie. It’d been _more than_ obvious from the moment he first stepped foot on the practice field; Odell Beckham Jr, much like every other rookie drafted after him, could be read like a book from a mile away. The world’s easiest read-option, he’d always joked; all rookies had the same thoughts, the same reactions, the same excitement. Odell is no different.

Well, maybe he’s a _little_ different, all things considered. _He’s really handsome_ , Eli’s lizard-brain offers as an example, as incredibly unhelpful as ever. Panic quickly sets in at the thought, and Eli realizes he’s been quiet longer than he intended to. When he looks up, Odell’s eyes are focused directly on his. Curious, open, listening. ( _His soulmate_.)

“Yeah, my mom’s was on her arm, too. Real big lettering, so it was hard to miss and ignore,” he continues. “I guess I spent so much time looking at hers it sorta became, y’know.” Eli gestures vaguely, implying _a habit_ so he doesn’t sound like a jackass saying the same excuse over and over again.

But Odell’s expression opens up a little more at his not-a-lie-but-not-really-true excuse. “Yeah?” He pops his water bottle open and takes a swig before returning his focus to Eli. “That’s real nice.” The words have no malice to them, though he would have every right to feel that way. He pauses, and Eli waits for him to say anything else (because it _looks_ like he’s got words on his tongue) but gets no further commentary about it. They sit in silence for several beats.

“Anyway, sorry man.” Eli ducks his head a little in apology. “I’ll, uh, try and keep my wandering eyes to myself.”

Odell laughs out loud at that. “Hey, hey, you said it, not me,” the wide receiver says between peals of laughter. The sound is bright and loud and strikes Eli like a punch to the gut. “’s all good, though, E. I get it.” He leans over to gently bump shoulders with Eli before pushing himself up from his chair and grabbing hold of his crutches. “Gotta go, boss man,” he says casually, giving his quarterback a wink. “Gotta make sure I won’t need these for week one. See ya.” And then Eli is alone with his thoughts and his lunch tray.

* * *

Well, the news Odell receives is less than ideal. The injury to his right hamstring is less of a bruise than a full-on pull, something he’d been hoping to avoid. He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, but a few months back, he’d actually torn the same hamstring doing pre-draft work. He’d been able to get away with it the first time around because he’d had help from several of his well-connected LSU buddies—but he also wasn’t under the same scrutiny of an NFL organization _and_ the media that accompanies it. Needless to say, it hits as kind of a shock.

“Four to six weeks,” the team doctor had said, nodding reassuringly as if this wasn’t almost an entire half-season of work he’d be missing. _Regular season football is around the corner and I won’t even be able to play a down of it_. The thought hangs heavy over his heart, especially paired with the knowledge that the Giants really were banking on him being successful in their offense. Coach Coughlin squeezes his shoulder reassuringly when he hears the news, and the rest of the wideouts in the Receivers Room are all really supportive. Reuben tells him, later, that hamstrings are the roughest of injuries, really—“If you can bounce back from this, li’l bro, you can come back from _anything_.”

Odell sure hopes so. In the meantime, he’ll be relegated to the bench, stuck watching his team flounder without his help.

The good part of this—maybe the only good part—is that O realizes he has a bit more time to catch up with his best friend, who's sitting all the way on the other end of the East Coast. Florida seems like it's been pretty good to Jarvis so far, Odell thinks, considering how fond he'd always been of the Louisiana heat and the sweat it came with. Miami especially; the snap stories he's been tapping his way through since May have been nothing if not on-brand for Juice.

Distance aside, it really doesn't even feel like all that much has changed since college; Jarvis was always pushing him harder at LSU, keeping him going and balancing him out on the field and off, and it seems like at the pro level, that hasn't changed a bit. The first call O had made after landing in New York was Jarvis, and he was the recipient of text #1 about this hamstring incident. Where there’d been Odell, there was _always_ Jarvis alongside him. The only real constant in Odell's chaotic football life. Or, more accurately, the closest thing he thinks he has to a real soulmate, Mark be damned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (follow-up chapter coming shortly.)


	6. six.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOLD YOU I'D UPDATE!
> 
> also, god these two. these two.
> 
> (ps. lightly referenced sexual content.)

If he could choose who his soulmate was—you know, hand-pick who his words would be Marked on—Odell thinks he’d choose Jarvis. Of course, that would be his college brain speaking loudest; he’s known Jarvis forever and they live in each other’s back pocket anyway, so what difference would a Mark be between them? Besides. Juice is handsome, and he’s kind, and he works in perfect tandem with everything that Odell does. They’d joked about being blood brothers their freshman year at LSU, where they accidentally finished each other’s sentences four times in a day, except they spat in their hands instead of slicing each other’s palm when they shook on it. Today, Odell knows that he doesn’t think they’d be the perfect soulmate match, but throughout college, he knows he’d’ve been happy if his matching Mark-bearer had been none other than his _14_.

It also helped that, at the time, neither of them knew where their Mark had come from. It was an odd way to bond, really, seeing as neither young man wanted to talk about something as personal and as _revealing_ as a Mark: but it hadn’t taken long for them to push past the discomfort. Jarvis had listened when Odell confessed about not even knowing when he’d _gotten_ his Mark when he was so young; Odell returned the favor when his new friend explained how he’d thought he found the one, only to find out that it’d been a fake the whole time. _Sharpie_. He’d been old enough to know better but naïve enough, romantic enough…

Odell was sold on him from that moment forward. They’d clicked like nobody’s business, and it wasn’t long before they became an indescribably talented receiver tandem making _waves_ in College Football headlines. If possible, they were even _better_ off the field—study partners, wingmen to each other, confidants. A swiss army knife of relationships had become the norm between them and neither of them would even think to have it any other way. They were lost in the Marked world, but at least they were lost together.

At least, that’s one way to put it. After all, through everything, their relationship has always been…a little in-between the lines. They were close, closer than brothers or twins or anything like that—they even spent a portion of their final year at LSU joking about how they were actually each other’s soulmates after all this time, seeing as neither of them had a better answer as to why they couldn’t seem to find their Marked partners. It had become another comfort to Odell in his journey to finding where his other half was—and it had turned into something else.

Odell came out as bi at the start of their junior year. It had been a long time coming, really—sure there were plenty of women he’d been interested in, and a couple he even tried dating, but he’d spent far too many nights gazing at his best friend in non-platonic ways to pretend he wasn’t a little interested in men, too.

That, and of course, the fact that they’d gotten each other off more times than either of them would admit to.

Nobody had _ever_ given him a handjob before—at least, not like Juice had. If Odell is being honest, he doesn’t think he’s gotten a comparable one since. Jarvis is _that_ good.

So good, in fact, that O still remembers the very first time he’d even been touched by his best friend. (In the future, the memory brings him some type of comfort, knowing how much they loved each other and how truly close they’d been back then. In the present, it still stings a little.)

After a particularly rough practice, Odell had been absolutely _exhausted_ but unable to sleep. Something inside him was rattling around, something he couldn’t quite place, and that something was keeping his brain occupied.

“Ugh,” he groaned from the bottom bunk, covering both hands with his face.

The man above him moved, rustling the sheets. “You too?” Jarvis laughed, rolling over so that he could peer down at Odell. “’m tired as shit but am wide awake. And it’s—” they both had looked over at O’s desk clock. “Fuck, it’s 1:02am.”

“1:02,” O echoed. “What’s gotten into us? Sheeeeiiit.” And they’d laid there for a while, kind-of looking at each other, kind-of hoping one would fall asleep naturally and let the other knock out by using the certain preferred, ah, _personal_ way. But O knows he won’t be able to sleep anytime soon; too many thoughts had been swirling around in Odell’s head, missed plays and sharp whistles and so much _shouting_ , to let him close his eyes and really rest. Plus, even if he pretended to fall asleep, he’d still end up hearing Jarvis, and that—that, well, that just cannot happen. For a whole _list_ of reasons.

And, well, at that point, there really was only one thing left he really could do.

So O bit first. “Man, the only way this’ll happen is if I jack off.” Blunt, sure, but honest. He knew he could be straightforward with his best friend, even despite the fact that O’s been making secret eyes at him for months now. Really, they were friends first and foremost—they could talk about banging chicks, so why couldn’t they talk about this, too? “So like—guess I’ll go to the bathroom, just put in your damn headphones—”

“No, man.” Jarvis had spoken softly from above him, but it cut right through the bedframe and into Odell’s ears. “No, I—hold on.” In one swift motion, he’d slid down their shitty metal bunk frame. Odell, who had realized in one heart-stopping second what was probably about to happen, had sat up in bed so quickly that he’d gotten a little lightheaded. Jarvis easily plopped down next to him, casual as ever.

“What, J?” Odell’s voice had come out just as soft. If he looked too closely, he’d see that Jarvis had a look in his eyes and a bit of spit coating his lower lip in a way that could only mean he’d been nervously running his tongue over it for some time.

But that was if he’d been closer. And he…he just…

“Lemme try something,” is all Jarvis had said, and suddenly they’d been mouth-to-mouth, Jarvis’ lips soft and insistent against Odell’s, who had been so startled by getting the thing he’d been fantasizing about for months that he froze for a moment too long. Jarvis pulled away, a horrified look on his face. “Shit, O, I’m—”

“No—no, J, I.” Words had failed him. All he could really do was kiss him back.

Well. Kiss him and then some.

They’d fallen asleep in the same bed (accidentally) and still messy (also accidentally) but sated. Odell had dreamed that night about getting fucked by his best friend, too, but woke up in the middle of the night to pee and was able to recover before he had to explain.

He climbed up to the top bed when he came back from the bathroom and fell asleep in Jarvis’ sheets and pretended that maybe, _maybe_ , he’d been an anomaly. Maybe it had been Jarvis all along, and they’d been so destined to be together that it appeared before they ever even met.

He wouldn’t complain about that at all.

And that had been it—they’d developed that odd relationship, one based in friendship and in need. A month and a half before the draft, Odell had been seeing him at least three times a week to hang out and spend the night—sometimes platonically and sometimes otherwise. And he’d been _comfortable_. Jarvis was an extension of himself in so many ways, and _god_ how Odell wished (and still does, a little bit) that he could be home. That Jarvis could be the one Odell is meant to be with, forever and ever.

That’s not the case, of course. (Why would it ever be easy?) The week of the draft, mere days before showtime, he’d shot Odell a text. _Found her_ , is all it said.

Odell had no clue what he was talking about. He typed out three different messages, all equally confused-sounding, before settling on a concise and firm **_WTF?_**

The reply came soon after, but it only took one look for Odell to wish he’d ignored it altogether.

_Mark. Found da 1_

And just as quickly as the fantasy of having his best friend and sometimes-crush as a soulmate had appeared, it’d gone. The proverbial rug was now whipped out from under him and left him sitting ass-backwards on the cold floor. _Found the one_. Odell couldn’t even figure out how he felt—was he _jealous_? Was he _heartbroken_? He didn’t respond right away and instead set his phone down on his hotel room table. The bed seemed to be a hundred miles away as he dragged himself towards it, suddenly drained. He couldn’t even bring himself to curl up in it—he just fell backwards into the too-formal sheets, eyes fixated up at the ceiling, and shook his head.

No tears, no yelling. Just silence. The draft is in four god damn days and now he can’t…he can’t just go out there without being able to look at his best friend? He’d been thrown for a loop, not even sure what he’s supposed to do, now. Jarvis wouldn’t cut him out, no—he’d keep him in his life, they’d stay close forever, reminisce about how good they used to be in college when they’re old and gray…but Juice would be married. Juice would have a wife and kids and grandkids, and Odell…who’s to say where he’d be?

The irrational, dramatic side of his brain had reared its head once again, after being dormant all throughout college, voice chilling and familiar: _Alone_.


End file.
